


Anything You Ask

by DesireeArmfeldt



Category: due South
Genre: Angst, Challenge Response, Community: older_not_dead, Established Relationship, Friendship, Hospitals, Love, M/M, Major Character Injury, POV First Person, Permanent Injury, Prompt Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-30
Updated: 2013-11-30
Packaged: 2018-01-03 01:41:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 942
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1064183
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DesireeArmfeldt/pseuds/DesireeArmfeldt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fraser is in the hospital, and he isn't going to get better.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Anything You Ask

**Author's Note:**

> Angst-to-hope ratio: high (but it's the bittersweet kind, not the dark kind).
> 
> Apparently I'm really just in a procrastinatory frame of mind this week. Have some fic.

“Don’t tell Ray,” Fraser says.

Clearest words he’s said to me all afternoon.  He’s been awake for an hour or so, with it enough to talk, which is pretty good.  Not exactly _lucid:_ half the time, he’s been talking to people who aren’t in the room.  Mostly dead people: his dad, his grandma, Diefenbaker.  I don’t know if it’s the nerve damage or the pneumonia or the painkillers making him loopy, and I guess it doesn’t really matter.

Anyway, he’s drifting in and out at that point, but he blinks a couple of times like he’s trying to get my face into focus, and kinda tugs on my hand that’s holding his, and says, “Don’t tell Ray.”

For a second, I think he’s talking about me, don’t tell me something.  But no, I know exactly what he means.  Not me; Vecchio.

It was almost the first thing he said to me in the hospital, that first day.  _Don’t tell Ray._

Don’t tell Vecchio you’re dying from the bullet he put in you.  Sure, Frase.  Anything you say.  Not like talking to Vecchio about anything, ever, is high on my list of fun things to do.

Right after hospitals.  And catheters and diapers and wheelchairs and _irreversible_ and drug-resistant superbacteria and fucking _make him as comfortable as we can, now._

Sometimes Fraser says stuff like, _Make sure to feed the dogs, Ray._

_We don’t have dogs any more, Frase._

Or, _I think you were right about the fire._

And I spend the rest of the day thinking about years' worth of woodstoves and campfires and arson and wondering what the hell Fraser’s admitting he was wrong about.

About every other day, when he’s got it particularly together: _I love you, Ray.  You don’t know how much I love you._

_I know, Frase.  I know._

And maybe I’ve already heard those words for the last time.

Don’t want to think about it, but shutting your eyes don’t do a damn thing to change the truth.  He had a good hour today, but it was a fluke.  I know that.  Doctor explained it to me in small words—he’s a good guy, better than most docs, he treats me like a person and doesn’t make me feel like a moron and doesn’t pull his punches, either.  I argued with him; told him this is Fraser we’re talking about, he’s got special exemptions from the normal laws of physics and biology and medicine and common sense and. . .well, pretty much everything, really.  He listened and then when I ran out of steam, he said _The human body is a miraculous thing, almost anything is possible._ I think he actually meant it, but we both know where a sane man would place his bet.

Not that I’m what you’d call entirely sane.  Fraser certainly ain’t.

But still.  But still.

If those are the last words I hear out of him: _Don’t tell Ray. . ._

I’m sure Vecchio’s an okay guy.  He was a good friend to Fraser when he needed one, and I’m grateful for that.  Honest to God.  But I spent two years cleaning up after Vecchio.  Picking up the pieces he left behind, trying to fix his mistakes or at least minimize the damage.  And you know, I’ve got better things to do with my life.

But twenty years later, here I am, still cleaning up after him.

Part of me wishes I’d phoned Vecchio right away, told him _Fraser’s in the hospital, he’ll never walk again, and it’s all your fault._ Fraser wanted to spare him the guilt and the pain of seeing Fraser hurt and helpless and messy and ugly.  Me, I wouldn’t have minded seeing Vecchio suffer.  But I know how hard it's been on Fraser’s pride to let me see him like this; last thing I want is to stick the knife in further.  Let Vecchio remember Fraser the way he’d want to be remembered.  Let Fraser have that, at least.

Besides, this is all I have left of him.  And I don’t want to share.

Fraser would be disappointed in me, but fuck him.  He doesn’t need to know.  Anyway, he doesn’t want to share, either.

 _Don’t tell Ray._ Squeezing my hand, staring up at me with that earnest look in his eyes that makes me want to jump off buildings and move to Canada and hold him so no one can ever hurt him again.

Fraser’s king of the passive-aggressive maneuver, but he doesn’t ask for things he doesn’t want.

Of course, Fraser can be a real moron when it comes to knowing what he actually wants.  And especially when it comes to Vecchio.

 _I’d give you the moon, if I had a string,_ I said to him once, on the Quest, the two of us sitting wrapped up in a million layers of wool and parkas and whatever else, looking up at the giant white moon surrounded by a million billion stars.

 _You don’t need a string,_ he said.  And he reached up in front of my face and made a pinchy gesture with his thumb and the finger-side of his mitten, so it looked like he was plucking the moon out of the sky.  Held out his palm in front of me, full of moonlight.

 _Besides, I don’t need the moon._ And he kissed me, warm breath in my mouth, icicles on our eyelashes.

Twenty fucking years.  Give or take.

Still haven’t found that string, buddy.

But I’ve got a cell phone, so I kiss him on the forehead and tell him I’ll be back soon, and I go outside to stand with the smokers and dial Florida.


End file.
